Our Judging Panel
Ann Priest
Head of College for Art, Design and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University, Ann has considerable experience in the fashion industry, having worked for a variety of fashion houses such as Mulberry and high street retailer Wallis. She is Chair of the judging panel for the Nottingham Creative Business Awards.
Martin Knox
Martin Knox is an international brand consultant and business designer with over twenty years experience of working in retail. He has worked with many major retail and clothing brands including Marks & Spencer, Next, Kangol, Early Learning Centre, BHS, Converse and Cancer Research UK.
Marc Gaudart
Senior Vice-President of Global Consulting at Experian, Marc has worked in the financial services industry for the past 18 years, including many multinational financial organisations across the world. Marc is on the board of Nottingham’s Broadway Media Centre and is an enthusiastic cineaste.
Andrew Cooper
Andrew is a solicitor and was the founder and organiser of the first Nottingham Creative Business Awards in 2007. Andrew is passionately committed to the promotion and development of Nottingham’s cultural and creative sectors, and earlier this year set up with Jennie Syson, Nottingham Visual Arts, an online magazine and directory devoted to the review and celebration of Nottingham’s burgeoning visual art scene.
Alex Farquharson
Alex has been the Director of Nottingham Contemporary since 2007. He is a curator and critic of contemporary art by background and has worked in both a freelance capacity in Europe and USA and as Exhibitions Director at Spacex and CVA in Exeter and Cardiff. Alex co-curated the last British Art Show and If Everybody Had an Ocean at Tate St Ives and CAPC Bordeaux.
Debbie Read
Debbie Read is Director of Arts & Business East Midlands, a national organisation that makes creative relationships work between business and the arts. Debbie started her career in theatre-in-education, and has worked as a performer, a theatre designer, a theatre promoter, has managed venues at the Edinburgh Festival, and for the Millennium Experience in the West Midlands.
Sunita Yeomans
Sunita is an experienced retail designer who is currently Head of Design at Argos, where she is evolving new concepts and approaches in challenging marketplaces.
Iain Simons
Iain writes, talks and makes events about technology and culture. He has published three books on videogame design and culture, and in 2005 he curated the first weekend of videogame programming at the National Film Theatre, before instigating the GameCity festival in Nottingham in 2006. Most recently he was one of the team that founded the National Videogame Archive, a unique collaboration between Nottingham Trent University and the National Media Museum.
Caroline Hennigan
Caroline is Head of Audience Development and Cinema Programme at Broadway, the region’s flagship cinema & media centre. Her role encompasses both the marketing of the centre as well as the selection of what you see on the screens. Her background is in both commercial and arts marketing. Her interests include film (to a nerdy level), reading, travel, food and watching The Simpsons with her six month old daughter.
Simon Fitch
Simon is Head of Performing Arts at Arts Council England, East Midlands. He has worked in a variety of arts organisations in this country and in Denmark, most notably on large-scale community based projects which have gone on to be screened and staged at the National Theatre and MOMI in London. Simon has competed in the Nottingham half and New York full marathons, with no threat to breaking the course records of either.
Angela Kay
Angela is the Director of Nottingham Choral Trust and studied at Nottingham College of Education. She has been involved with the musical life of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire for most of her professional life. Angela is the founder and Artistic Director of Music for Everyone, a Nottingham based charity.
Adam Buss
Adam is the Deputy Director of QUAD, Derby’s £11 million centre for art and film. He has previously worked for brands such as Orange, Sony Playstation, Topman & Hewlett Packard. Adam is also the marketing manager for the FORMAT International Photography Festival, the UK’s leading photography festival. He has an interest in the performing arts and has previously worked as both a professional actor and stand-up comedian. He is a board member of acclaimed theatre company 1623 Theatre.
Michael Eaton
Michael is a Nottingham-based writer whose films include ‘Fellow Traveller’ (Best Screenplay, British Film Awards). Television work includes ‘Shoot to Kill’ (Best Drama, Broadcasting Press Guild and Royal Television Society), ‘Why Lockerbie’, ‘Signs and Wonders’ and ‘Shipman’, amongst many others. He is currently adapting Thomas Hardy’s ‘Under The Greenwood Tree’ for stage and was awarded an M.B.E for Services to Film in the 1999 New Year’s Honours List.
Stephanie Jebbitt
Stephanie is an international designer of fashion and furnishings and has over 18 years experience as a Consultant and Design director of high end international furnishing brands. She has designed products ranging from fabric and wall coverings, furniture, bespoke fashion fabrics and accessories. She is currently working on designing high end collections of furnishing ranges for 2010/11 and researching new yarn constructions to benefit innovation of the international textile contract market.
Henderson Mullin
Henderson worked in business publishing for several years before joining Index on Censorship in 1998, an NGO which publishes books and magazines in support of creative freedom. As its Publisher and CEO, Henderson helped introduce new writers and artists to the cultural and political debates held in mainstream media. Pursuing his interest in literature, he is now Chief Executive of Writing East Midlands, the new regional development agency.
Debbie Bryan
With a specialist interest in knitting, knit research and development, Debbie established her own craft business in 2006, designing and making knitted fashion accessories and resin jewellery. Her collections are sold to independent retailers in the UK, US and across Europe. Debbie won the Craft award at the inaugural Nottingham Creative Business Awards in 2007. Her work has since gone from strength to strength and she recently opened a second studio and retail outlet in Nottingham’s Lace Market.
Martine Hamilton Knight
Over the last 19 years, Martine has specialised in architectural photography. She has run a successful business working for a variety of organisations including architects, construction companies, interior designers and advertising agencies. She is has two major books featuring her work of Nottingham’s buildings, entitled NOTTINGHAM TRANSFORMED and CAMPUS VIEWS’ about the University of Nottingham’s architecture.
Guy Brown
Guy’s fascination with his national heritage through design, looks at and constantly re-invents everyday familiar objects by exploring their function and materiality. His pieces include a lighthouse lamp and horse saddle stool. Currently he is working on an on-going series which takes the familiar British plastic school chair as its point of departure.
Val Passetti
Dr Valeria Passetti RIBA of PASSETTI+ASSOCIATES is an architect specializing in conservation and restoration of historical buildings. Projects span from the conversion of Victorian warehouses in the north of England to the restoration of a Grade I listed building in London. Her main interest is the retro fitting of environmental measures onto listed buildings to ensure the preservation and viability of our architectural heritage. She was appointed the Honorary Consul of Italy in 2006.
Simon Harrison
Simon has over fourteen years experience in the design industry and is the Creative Director of Nottingham branding and graphic design studio, Purple Circle. He has worked on a wide range of projects for clients including; Bewilderwood, Calvin Klein, NCHA, Nottingham City Council and Speedo. His work has been profiled in numerous design magazines and has won wide recognition for his work with Design Week, the Creative Review Annual, The Roses, Fresh and Cream awards.
Adrian Jones
Adrian is an independent consultant specialising in the integration of planning, urban design and transport. He was director of planning, transport and highways at Nottingham City Council for 10 years until 2007 and was responsible for its successful regeneration strategy based on radical transport policy and ambitious masterplanning. In his earlier career, Adrian worked on the renovation of Nottingham’s historic Lace Market.
Wolfgang Buttress
Wolfgang Buttress creates simple, elegant and contextual sculptures which seek to define and celebrate a sense of place. Working in a variety of materials he has, over the last 15 years, produced artworks for the public realm in the UK, Europe and the USA. Inspired by the work of artists and architects such as Ando, Brancusi, Saarineen, Tapies and Twombly, his work alludes to histories, traces and memories which are both personal and contextual. He has recently won two prestigious Civic Trust Awards – in 2008 for the ‘Silica’ landmark sculpture for the centre of Weston-super-Mare and in 2009 for his work on the Stamford Gateway project.
Nick Alfrey
Nicholas Alfrey teaches art history at the University of Nottingham. His interests are in Romanticism and the landscape tradition, and he has been running a research network on land art and its legacies in partnership with the Slade School of Fine Art and Tate. He is a contributor to the catalogue of the exhibition 'Paul Sandby: Picturing Britain', currently on show at the Nottingham Castle Museum.
Rhonda Wilson
Rhonda is the creative director of Rhubarb-Rhubarb, an internationally renowned development agency working with photographers at different stages of their development. The company has created 'The People and the City', a show promoting Birmingham, working with Brian Griffin and Tom Merilion; shown work by west midlands photographers in Arles and China, and more recently won the world premiere of 'Obama's people' - a series of 53 portraits of the new American administration, by Nadav Kander.
David Chantry
David’s specialist background is in menswear and he has previously worked in the fashion industry for many companies including Browns, D Byford & Co and the Regent Belt Company. His professional passions include the corruption of the classics and conceptual pattern cutting and pattern construction. Students taught by David include Daniel Hanson, Jeff Griffin, the late Charles Hunter (pattern cutter to Hussein Chalayan and Margaret Howell) and significant designers at Aquascutum, Daks, Burberry, Paul Smith, Ralph Lauren, Nike, Adidas, Umbro, Barbour, Berghaus and ASOS.
Jonathan Fort
Jonathan’s childhood passion for making things with whatever he could find led him to a degree in furniture and product design from Nottingham Trent University. In 1993 he became director of Noble Russell, a small but vibrant furniture design company, set up with two friends. Based in Rutland, Noble Russell has grown gradually to become a highly regarded designer and manufacturer of contract furniture.
Joan Taylor
Having a background in design and a passion for the fashion industry, Joan realised her ultimate goal in the creation of TUTU in 1989. Running an independent business is undoubtedly challenging and very demanding; however, Joan feels the rewards and the sense of achievement she has gained are huge. Over the years she has established great friendships and business relationships with designers including Betty Jackson and Nicole Farhi. However, she still takes great pride in seeking out new design talents.
Alex Jukes
Alex specialises in animation and interactive art and has produced graphical sequences for Zenith North/Tyne Tees TV and Eidos Interactive. His current research considers visual perception and the effects of technology on our understanding of the real and he has exhibited his work and delivered a number of academic papers both nationally and internationally relating to this subject.
Lorna Milligan
Lorna is Creative Director at Jupiter Design in Nottingham. She started her career 14 years ago as a designer, working within various design agencies in Scotland, then going on to lead a creative studio for a large UK leisure business. Lorna set up and ran her own design business in Glasgow, working with clients such as the BBC, Centre for Contemporary Arts and Glasgow Film Office. Lorna’s key areas of expertise are in the creation of new brands and the development of campaigns to launch and support them. She has 10 years’ experience at Creative Director level and joined Jupiter in 2005.
Sean Hastings
Sean is the Vice President of Product & Design at Nottingham-based Speedo International, the world’s leading swim brand. Sean joined Speedo in 2004, previously holding roles in product development and project management at Dyson. After managing Speedo's Equipment category through a period of sustained growth, he was promoted to head the global Equipment & Licensing business units in 2006. Sean was appointed Vice President of Product & Design, and a member of the Speedo Executive, in 2008.
